It's pretty pathetic that the only post between street urchins this week was one measly Christmas roundup that I conjured from the bowels of uninspired desperation. Snooping through my urchin collection this morning I came across these guys, and had to post them. I love the dreamy look on the guy on the left's face, and the way he and his friend frame the cozy fellows behind them.

Wood has had half days all week like a kindergartner, so that cut into her prime writing time. On Wednesday night I rattled off all the funny things she could have written about her family over the holidays, like the time her mom ripped a loud one and Juniper totally called her out on it ("Grandma fah-ted!") but Wood looked at me with disgust and said, "Christmas is so last week." I had already written about the time we celebrated New Year's in a Chinese brothel. Plus last night Wood's mom was in town so we called up Melissa and Logan and we all went out to the bars, thus destroying any chance I had to cross my own threshold last night without stumbling like a vaudeville drunk, let alone get anything written.

It must seem, for those who read a parent's blog for enough time, that one can almost watch that blogger's child grow up. In our case, any readers who've stayed with us have seen Juniper go from an adorable little squirming shitbag on whom we projected all kinds of behavior to a talking, whiny toddler that we like to think is potty trained until she pisses on something important. I assume also, that any of you who read this site and Suburban Bliss have watched while a real friendship has grown out of the weird circumstances of the internets. We really love those guys in real life. They are so much fun, and only awkward when Logan drinks Irish whiskey and creates suggestive Venn diagrams on cocktail napkins. Even though we are different from those two (suburban/urban; metrosexual/hairy), we get along great. Last night Logan was going off on one of his diatribes, this time about how much he loves jazz. I had to tell him the truth: I fucking hate jazz. Wood concurred. He looked so wounded, and I said to him, "It's okay Logan, I like hanging out with people who have totally different tastes from me. In fact, I prefer it. I hate hanging out with people with the exact same taste as me." Logan looked at me and said, "Yeah, well, I hate hanging out with people who have the exact same taste as you, too."

So on that note, later today Wood and I will be posting our favorite albums of 2006, with representative MP3s from each album.

From: Wood
To: Dutch
Date: 12/21/2006
Time: 9:20 a.m.
Subject: pee pee potty?

that baby is probably going to need to pee real soon, if she hasn't done it already. she had a lot of juice at breakfast. FYI.

From: Dutch
To: Wood
Date: 12/21/2006
Time: 9:24 a.m.
Subject: Re: pee pee potty?

just went!

From: Wood
To: Dutch
Date: 12/21/2006
Time: 9:28 a.m.
Subject: Re: pee pee potty?

really? did she go on the floor first, or straight into the pot? big or little? did you ask her if she needed to, or did she come up with it on her own?

From: Wood
To: Dutch
Date: 12/21/2006
Time: 10:17 a.m.
Subject: pee pee potty?

yo, write me back.

10: 45a.m., Wood calls Dutch's cell phone:

Dutch: Hi.

Wood: Hey, what are you guys doing? I just wanted to hear your voice.

Dutch: Here it is.

Wood: Sooooo? Did she pee in the potty on her own?

Dutch: She did, into her little one. I told her she did a good job and then asked if she wanted to wear big girl pants. She said she did, so I put them on her.

Wood: Wow! That's awesome! I'm totally going to owe you $100 if you have this kid potty trained by the new year.

Dutch: An hour later she peed all over the couch. There was a lot of pee. A lot.

Wood: Oh. Sometimes they forget when they're wearing the big girl pants. At least it wasn't your fancy chair.

Dutch: I've gotta go. I've got the couch cushion cover stripped off and it's all wet and I'm using your new hair dryer to dry the foam inside. She's watching Elmo's world while I clean it up. I think I only have a few minutes before it's over.

Wood: You're letting her watch what?

Dutch: I think this Mr. Noodle dude is totally high. Look at him, he's on the pot!

The other day Wood told me that an abandoned building on her way to work was being torn down. "Which one?" I asked, because she walks past probably a dozen abandoned skyscrapers on her way to work. "I don't know," she said. "A white one."

I once spent several hours standing in a forest, watching a mighty tree crack and slowly fall after an ice storm. I was not going to miss this demolition. Juniper and I went with Wood yesterday morning and walked around and around the Detroit Commerce Building in palliative appreciation of its gentle arches and modest ornamentation: this was a building in its final days, thirteen stories that had stood since 1925, sealed off since 1997, now just standing in the way of a parking garage planned for the soon-to-be-restored Book-Cadillac hotel next door. We watched a wrecking ball slam into what had once been one of the largest department stores in a city where everyone once had good jobs and where the city was the place to shop. This building also held dozens of offices and law firms over the years. Those who've been inside it recently say many of the old files and furniture are still in there. That is not unusual. When they demolished a building that once held Motown Records' downtown offices to "beautify" the city before last year's Superbowl, they did not even save Marvin Gaye's desk---some guy exploring the building before it went down found some of Gaye's signed receipts and even a letter to his wife in the desk drawers. Juniper and I spent yesterday morning watching another building and its contents go on its way to nothing more than piles of brick and concrete and a twisted mess of rebar and wiring.

I've been doing this stay-at-home dad thing for about four or five months now, and I have to say it really agrees with me. I have intentionally not written much about it, because I have really been waiting for a day when I could complain about how boring and miserable it is. See, back when I was spending all day away from my kid and sitting in my office gasping for air as all the the sentimentality gushing out of me threatened to drown my be-khakied ass, I figured once I was at home getting a taste of how miserable stay-at-home parenthood actually is I would finally be able to write nasty things about how much being around my kid all day sucks. You know, so I wouldn't sound like such a sappy sonofabitch all the time.

But this lifestyle suits me. I am basically living the life of Riley here, folks. First of all, I don't do a lot of housework. I know that's a real disservice to all the other SAHDs out there slugging it out for equality in the homeplace, but I just don't make "doing dishes" or "picking up" a huge priority every day. Second of all, as far as childcare goes, there's only one of them around here. We play for most of the day; we go to the zoo or museums. She is my buddy. Even without television, she is so easy to distract with all the gewgaws and gimcracks that lie strewn about our house when I have to get something done. Plus, because I am so much bigger and stronger than her, she basically has to go wherever I want her to. I can just scoop her up and carry her around and there's little she can do to stop me. That is the third and most important thing: I love being able to go and do whatever I want. Lately that has meant taking advantage of the warm weather and walking around Detroit's central business district, which pleases us both. She jabbers on and on about the holiday decorations while I think and learn more every day about the city where we've chosen to live. I can't help myself: sometimes I find myself staring at her in my arms, after she's made a funny, smiling face on one adventure of ours or another, and think, Dear God this is exactly what I want to be doing with my life right now. Gag, I know. But bear with me.

When I was growing up, my own father worked from home. He ran his own auto body shop and restored antique automobiles in a building he built in our backyard. He had dozens of his own cars out there, too; most of them arrived in cardboard boxes and left fitted with shiny brass lights and 'uh-ooga' horns, sold to wealthier men who sputtered out of our driveway in the cars my father lovingly restored. I spent my childhood not going on vacations, but going to antique car shows and swap meets around the Midwest, sometimes driving 30 mph for many hours down blue highways in a 1927 Franklin or perhaps a bit faster in a 1931 Buick Phaeton. My dad worked on Packards from the 1920s and Ferraris from the 1960s, but he also repaired dented fenders on Cutless Supremes and Ford Tauri in the eighties when customers asked him to. His favorite era of the automobile was the 1910s through the 1930s, and as far as his personal tastes were concerned there wasn't a car manufactured after 1937 that mattered much. He raised me to respect the curve on a Duesenberg the way some fathers teach their sons about sports, or women. My father taught me that an Auburn automobile is a work of art, and he showed me that he himself was an artist who could turn a heap of rust into a gleaming canvas of steel.

But more than that, one important lesson I think I learned from my dad was to uncompromisingly pursue a life doing exactly what makes me happy. He never said that in so many words, but he showed me by doing what he did, quitting a job he hated to strike out on his own, creating beauty in unexpected ways and always being there when his son and daughter came home from school. I hope that as she grows, Juniper will learn that same lesson from my own life, and from the things we do together.

I have been driving with Juniper past the ruins of old automobile plants, most notably the sprawling Packard campus not far from our house. All around this city there are vacant lots and vacant buildings where other great factories once stood, places where cars were built with names that mean nothing to anyone except people like my dad: Hudson, Lozier, Rickenbacker, Hupp, Reliance, Graham-Paige, and so many others. I sometimes think about those cars when I look up at the empty buildings downtown Detroit; I think about the lives those factories sustained that kept those buildings full of working men and women. But I have been training myself when looking at ruins not to think about the past but to think about the beauty of the ruin itself. This is the city we inherited. What lessons might we learn from these stones?

I like to think they remind us that we are alive.

I never would have been cool or sexy enough to write for Nerve, but just by virtue of having impregnated my wife thirty months ago I am now apparently good enough to write for Nerve's new website, Babble, alongside my friends Metrodad, Dad Gone Mad, CityMama, Girls Gone Child, Jay Allen, Alisyn Cobb, Patti Nichols, and two people I've never heard of.

Today my first post is up at Babble's Strollerderby blog. It probably singlehandedly reveals that I am not cool enough to write for that site:

I must have also enjoyed screaming in people's ears and nodding in feigned comprehension at their screamed responses, because I sure spent a lot of evenings doing that, too. And I must have freakin' loved screaming at bartenders and then shelling out fifteen bucks for my wife's well martini and a pint of Anchor Steam four times every weekend night, because that's where a substantial portion of my take-home pay went during the years we spent under the tyranny of obligatory nightlife.

When Wood was staying home with Juniper, I would usually arrive home from work in time for her dinner. At that time, dinner involved a strenuous effort to convince Juniper to open her mouth for the various hashes and succotashes we prepared for her with tofu, eggs, kale, peas, cheese, black beans, garbanzos, hot dogs, ketchup and other ingredients in combinations that under ordinary circumstances no adult human would ever consume. But after going through the effort to cook it on the stove (we didn't have a microwave in San Francisco) Wood inevitably felt compelled to eat some of the scorned leftovers on Juniper's high-chair tray. I always found this absolutely disgusting, and never failed to let my wife know it.

Two days ago I was walking around with Juniper on my back in one of those emasculating backpack carriers and I stopped at an Indian restaurant downtown to grab some takeout from their lunch buffet, and while I was filling the to-go container to maximum capacity, Juniper dropped a chunk of the brownie that she had been gnawing on for at least ten minutes. It bounced off my shoulder right into a steaming vat of mutter paneer. By reflex I snatched it up with the tongs and dropped it in my palm. There was no trash nearby, and the proprietor's back was turned, so I popped the drooly and gnawed-up brownie chunk covered in dripping pea-and-cheese curry sauce right into my mouth.

I didn't think much about it until we went to bed last night and I told Wood what happened. She laughed and said, "What the fuck's wrong with you? That's absolutely disgusting." I nodded, but was thinking to myself that it didn't actually taste that bad.

For over a year now I have been contributing to a website called Blogging Baby, where I get paid to find, summarize, and add commentary to news stories that are at least tangentially related to parenthood or children. Occasionally my posts rouse some discussion, but most just slip under the radar. Last Friday afternoon, I spent about three or four minutes summarizing a story about an Oklahoma Wal-Mart where a bag of cocaine was found in the toy aisle. I titled the post, "One more reason not to shop at Wal-Mart: cocaine in the toy department," and then added a picture of Juniper crying in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

In the past, I have lamented being such an elitist asshole for judging the good folk whose beautiful downtowns and cities across America have been eviscerated by the big box monstrosities that have sprung up along the highways. I was all romantic and sentimental in a way I am prone to be before somebody does me a favor and knocks me upside the head. In this case, it was AOL's front page linking to that Wal-Mart Cocaine story and suddenly 50,000 people who still haven't figured out how to access the internet without the help of America Online were reading the story, with pissed-off Wal-Mart supporters leaving more than 400 comments. They started getting really nasty, so after about an hour Wood made me take down the picture of our daughter.

The basic outrage behind 98 percent of the comments was that (1) the cocaine could have been left anywhere by anyone, i.e. it wasn't our beloved Wal-Mart's fault!; (2) Wal-Mart is great!; (3) Wal-Mart shoppers are not all trailer trash; and (4) You, Dutch are a terrible father. I felt I had a duty share with you the best comments from the finest minds gathered to defend the honor of Wal-Mart from a simple headline. Here they are, verbatim, mostly in the order they were received, each with the best I can come up with as an appropriate response.

James Adkins: You are conveying the idea that Wal-Mart put that mess(cocain) on the shelves and condones drug use. It might have been put there by a Sears or Target spy. I am not a vivid fan of Wal-Mart, but come-on. This accusation is reduclious. But then everybody wants to bring the Big Boy down, so have your say.

In high school, my friends and I totally brought the Big Boy down once. We took some pictures of him in funny places and then dumped him back on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. That was awesome.

Rena: What gave you the right to sit your daughter down in middle of the parking lot with the WalMart sign behind her and her crying That was very cruel to her just to get a picture.

And I suppose you'd prefer I'd take pictures of her in front of graffiti on abandoned auto factories in the silent streets of northeast Detroit?

kim beasley: It is not walmarts falt that edyits and crack heads are so stupid they put stuff like that were some pressus gift from god can get a hold of it and harm them self so stop blamming it on walmart the only thing they can do is drug test the people that work for them and clear ther employers and there name
. . .
ea if this guy is sooooo smart to he slammes walmart then why tha he--- did he put his baby girl s life in even bigger danger by letting her seat in the parking lot and cry great dad stupid when a baby is cryingf you are supose to hold her and let her know its ok not walk away and take a da--- pic for the puter you are f----ed up parent
. . .
i see dad that put this on the puter you r bad parenting is getting better feed back then your slamming walmarts name so not only is your bad judgement on haveing bringing a gift from god into this world and i do pray hard for little girl and hope you dont get her killed before she gets 18 it is all bad that you indangerd your blessing from god you my man should be casterated

Kim, we're looking for a part-time nanny to take care of our little blessing from god. If you happen to live the the Detroit area and are looking for work, please e-mail me (sweetjuniper @ gmail.com).

justin: Just because one WalMart had some cocaine in the aisle, doesnt mean that all of the wal marts are hiding cocaine for kids to get. More than likely, it was a simple deal gone bad between employees switching shifts. If you want to look at the other side of it maybe. people make too big of a deal out of everything. Plus, there are too many people on the planet as there is! and what would be one less kid running around anyway if they did eat the cocaine? one sad family, but people die everyday for unknown reasons. It is God's way of saying that earth is getting way to overpopulated with people. So he is slimming it down a little. Go God!

You sound just like me during my "the unabomber was right!" days.

Jeff: Your comments and picture are absolutely dispicable. Whether it was an employee or customer losing a gram of cocaine, (no one who uses the stuff is going to "plant" $100 worth of their habit)what difference dose that make? Do you really think a drug user planted it so someone career struggling left tilted journalist like you has Internet fodder?

And as for the moron that calls WM shoppers trailer trash: Aren't you just holier than Art Thou? I'm really impressed with your idiotic comments.

While you're right I am certainly holier than Art Thou (that unholy bastard Art Thou!), I do actually really believe that a drug user planted the cocaine so a career-struggling left-tilted writer like myself would have internet fodder. But get it right, Jeff: I'm a blogger, not a journalist. No legitimate print publication would ever hire me, and besides, I have no ethics to speak of, journalistic or otherwise.

Donna B: I'm with the reader who pointed out how you endangered your child by sitting her in the middle of the parking lot. Have you ever paid attention to how people drive in parking lots? Some one could have easily been speeding through and what you thought would be a "cute" picture could have so quickly turned into the most tragic event of your life. Maybe you need to be a bit more careful in pointing fingers.

Todd Phifer: By the way, the photo of your child is completely tasteless and it has nothing to do with the story. You should be investigated for child abuse for leaving that poor child on the pavement in the parking lot crying while you took the opportunity to take a photograph. Have you seen how some people drive in those lots!!!

ash: im start off by saying that i hate walmart im not a fan! but maybe if they actually did their job at walmart someone would have found it i been in there a few times and you can never find and employee! thank God someone found it before a child did! also that was horrible to leave your child sitting in the parkinglot like that ppl cant fu**ing drive for s**t!!!!!!!!!

I actually agree with you Donna, Todd, and ash, there's absolutely no place more dangerous for children than our nation's parking lots. That's why we live in Detroit instead of the suburbs.

Jose: I have walked around wal mart to kill time before. Many times I've seen people who are high on drugs walking around because it is something to do where they can see a lot of different people while high. Who knows, maybe a cop was getting some deoderant before his shift and the person with the cocaine was going to get caught. Who knows, but drugs could be found anywhere in any store. Wal mart has cheap things that are good.

Dude, Jose, we have to hang out some time.

J.J.: why would u put your baby in the parking lot while she is crying, for a photo? i think it was your coke they found! your not very smart lady!

J.J. you can say what you want about me and my cocaine habit, but watch what you say about my lady friend. She very smart lady!

Yo Yo [Wood could not even read Yo Yo's comments, because she thought they looked like spoken word, and nothing scares Wood more than spoken word]:

How does the media know that maybe the cops were on
to him,and he went into wallmart and put in on the
shelf and acted like a good citizen and turned it in?
How old was this dude? What kinda cigarettes?Cause
I guess whatever brand it is you people are going to
crucify the to maker of the cigarettes anyway
stop with messing with Wall-mart?????Get em both!
You bleeding heart Idiots!!!Dont foreget to sue the columbians!!! Cause they make good coke!!! Just like
you green piece people! I dont get it!You send your
kids too school with a pencil and paper right??You have
wooden furniture a fire place and burn wood!
. . .
Mom,Must be a coke hound or doesnt care about the
little one,Must have spent too much time in the toy
aisle with the dude that found the dope..You probably
spoil the crap outta her and didnt buy her a toy!
The looks of that pic,I would put a foot in her ass!
The little girl rules her mommy,Instead of mom ruleing
her..I bet your ole man tells her no,and you tell her
yes..She is a BRATT.

Yo Yo Yo, if Kim Beasley doesn't want to be our nanny, can I give you a call, girl?

sharon nieft: I am not happy the Wal=Mart is anymore either. It not Sam Waltons vision any longer. The CEO and the walton family is slowly ruining it. BUT i shop there because it is the cheapest place for groceries and etc. Maybe you people who dont shop there with the rest of us so called Trash dont have to budget your money. If so good for you but dont run down those of us who do.

I appreciate your commitment to Sam Walton's vision, sharon, but I think you might be being a little sensitive. The only folks being run down are babies in the parking lot.

Lee: As far as the baby on the floor of the parking lot, I'd be more concerned that her mother named her Juniper!!

Fuckin' hippies!

Chris: ......if my kid was that damn ugly I wouldn't post her picture on the internet. Such a lovely photo, a crying, screaming, spoiled brat acting up because she didn't get what she wanted. Ah such are the scenes all over the malls and stores. Ruins shopping for everyone.

You're right, Chris, from now on we're going to chain her up in the basement like Sloth from the Goonies: "You've ruined someone else's shopping trip for the last time, you little shit! Now eat your Baby Ruth and shut the fuck up!"

Nick: Juniper is your daughter's name. You must have done some "crack" you found down food aisle.

Before Wood started smoking crack during the pregnancy, we had chosen either "Makayla Trinity" or "Katelyn Mackenzie" to be our daughter's name, but every time we got high those names just sounded a little too fancy. So one night Wood smoked like three rocks and as she puffed out that last smoke she was like, "Juniper" and that's how we came up with it. But Wood had to give some guy named Tyrone a blow job to get the crack, we didn't just find it in any food aisle.

F. Sober: Stupid Story...anyone who has been around drug addicts or alcoholics knows they would NEVER lay down the one thing they value above all other, and then walk off and forget it! This was obviously planted. Conveniently, probably moments before it was "discovered" by the story writer, who in all liklihood was the one who "planted" the drugs. If not the story writer then someone (not a Walmart shopper) who had a bone to pick with Walmart. Bottom line is that why would we shop at a store (Target, etc.) that has employees or customers who would plant drugs in a competitor's store to get a fake story, while thereby endangering children. The story writer is again the most suspicious suspect since they already demonstrated their disregard for the safety of children by putting their own child down in a parking lot with cars driving though it.

I have never been the most suspicious suspect before.

ELISSA BRUNETTE: AS FOR THE WRITER LEAVING YOUR KID CRYING IN THE PARKING LOT TO GET A PIC WAS TOTALLY SENSLESS AND STUPID WITH A CAPITOL S. ANYONE COULD HAVE RUN HER OVER, ESPECIALLY THE GUY WHO IS GOING THROUGH WITHDRAWL CUZ HIS DRUGS WERE NOT LEFT WHERE THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE OR THE MAD DEALER CUZ HE IS OUT HIS MONEY CUZ THE HONEST MAN TURNED IT IN TO THE COPS. KUDOS TO THE HONEST GUY, AND I PRAY THE REST OF YOU GET PROFESSIONAL HELP. OH ONE MORE THING USING THE WORD TRAILER TRASH IS PUTTING DOWN A LOT OF GOOD PEOPLE. I AM PROUD TO LIVE IN A TRAILER. I WORK FOR A LIVING, AND AM A DECENT TRAILER TRASH WHO DOES NOT DO DRUGS, I HAVE GOOD VALUES AND RAISE MY CHILD TO BE THE SAME WAY. AND I DID NOT MAKE HIM SIT CRYING IN A WALMART PARKING LOT JUST TO GET A PICTURE.

A zen koan: how does one "capitolize" a letter that is already in ALL CAPS?

DDiggler: Yes it's pretty sad that some loser had to stash his coke in Public on a store shelf but it could have happened anywhere. The bigger issue is the moron that started this, setting his child on the parking lot while crying to get this picture!! Very crappy parent!!

That could be our new tagline. Sweet Juniper: A very crappy parent blog!!

FISHMATIZED: IF WALMARTS DROPPING PRICES EVERY DAY CALL ME WHEN COCAINE IS FREE!!!!

Word.

Robert Love: I see the message quite well, ANCIENT ROME'S LAW, in full affect! Such element that is being used here is beyound what the average individual can understand here. What has been said is just a smoke screen for what's not being said! The system is simply applying a subliminal message in which it is once again demostrating its evil! What evil? The same evil in which is responsible for the globals racism that both unconscious and conscious Black people, African Americans and now the newly found racism in which the government cooked up for our Islamic brothers. Im quite sure that if my statement got far enough, one would use the same tatics to do the same to me, which I welcome whole heartedly! If that same dose of crack which we must all be able to assert that is possible, was in some goverment official office, or white house, we wouldnt of heard a peep of it! Then suddenly, some of the witnesses would be resigning! I'm not upset with Walmart! Actually I like the place and have been to the store at locations from Flint, Michigan to Georgia, in which just the other day was my first time actually doing some grocery shopping for myself! The comment, issue, and article is all bogus and Walmart must of pissed someone off. It's all politics. For those who dont know how much politics affects us personally, You better start paying attention because its gonna be getting worse! One Love Walmart!
P.S. All this media play just reminded me that: You still owe me from some stock that I purchased in 1993, which I will be coming to get my share. I'll accept countless shopping sprees at any location around the world!

Holy fucking shit.

Nicole: The author of this article not only wrongly accuses the store, but has apparently posted photo evidence of her own child endangerment/neglect. I mean Parking lots do have vehicles than drive in them don't they? But instead of concerning herself with her own childs safety she would rather take the time to provide a potential jury with evidence to convict. especially since, in her apparent opionon, Walmart parking lots must be filled with drug crazed lunatics!

I hope Nicole never finds my flickr account.

Thelma Davidson: Uh I am the woman in the picture walking behind your screaming brat and would appreciate you taking this picture down immediately, as it offers no value to the article and you are featuring my image without my permission.

Bitch, you old. And ugly, too.

Duch2: Tell you what [Dutch]: If you want "one more reason to not shop at Wal Mart", then go ahead, you stupid ass! I'll continue to shop there, so I don't have to pay the high prices for crap at KMART, and I don't have to make the French rich by shopping at TARGET, and so I can continue to keep another "poor" union worker from strongarming a company in order to get a huge salary for little to no work, which in turn makes everything cost more! Go buy yourself a hamster from PETSMART, and shove it you know where!

Sorry, I only buy my ass hamsters at mom-and-pop pet stores.

louis calderon: An oppinion from a recovering - saved - old school vato! When your doing dope, regardless of what kind. Your mind is not right. your litterally a day late and a dollor short..... Wether it was the stocker over night or a valued customer, the fact remains true. (The drug it self is the problem) Someone forgot there stash was in the carton and tossed it or set it down and the fool will never understand the pain he or she could of caused, because when your HIGH logic does not exist......As far as the comment of "Another reason not to shop Wal Mart" Grow up! I'm a low in come father of Seven beatiful children, been there & done it....Wether its wally world, target or k-mart, saving a buck to create a smile or just live in comfort helps a whole lot...

Aren't those the lyrics to a lost Curtis Mayfield song?

Tammy: Ok Ill speak for the children in this situation. Im so thrilled that our Father in Heaven protected many children that are in Walmart everyday and he used this Father to find it, instead of a child that couldve and died. So i say Thank you God for his merciful hand. Although I did not see the picture,everyone can make foolish mistakes. So to the Wal mart critic just thank God he used you to save innocent lives, and maybe thats why your child didnt get ran over in the parking lot. God bless

Thank you, Tammy, for giving those innocent little mutes a voice. But my child not getting run over in the parking lot had nothing to do with god. It had more to do with the fact that it was 7:30 in the morning and there were hardly any fucking cars in the parking lot.

The Insight: What a self-righteous loser you are. You proably hide in the closet and turn the light out so the Lord can't see you take a drink. I feel very, very, sorry for your little girl.

I only hide in the closet and turn the light out to masturbate to thoughts about my lesbian fifth-grade gym teacher, Ms. McPhee. She looked kind of like Alice from the Brady Bunch. I am quite open about all the drinking.

TRISH: Hi, I am glad that it was found. But this is no reason to discredit Wal-mart. I Love That Store. P.S. Bring Back The LAYAWAY!!!!! PLEASEEEEEE!!!!!

Fuck yeah! Bring back the LAYAWAY, bitches! PLEASEEEEEE!!!!!

Billy Den: Hey [Dutch] You sound like a right wing paranoid moron. And since you removed your daughters picture...don't you have any common sense not to post a picture of your daughter in the first place? Sounds like some parenting skills are needed. You are a right wing hypocrite.

Okay, now I've been called absolutely everything. But a right winger? That is too much. You, sir, have just thrown down the gauntlet.

carl.pfeifer:

i.believe.that.drugs.should.not.have.enterd.the.store

it.is.againest.public.safety.law.to.have.drugs.

in.this.country.any.one.are.any.person.who.

carries.drugs.in.prseshin.is.going.to.be.arrested.
by.the.policeand.fbi.and.dea.officers.of.the.public.safety.thank.you.carl.pfeifer.

carl.pfeifer.are.you.a.robot.or.are.you.just.some.kind.of.awesome.autistic
dude.who.puts.periods.between.every.word.thank.you.dutch.

Tim: That's SCARY!!! If Wal-Mart decide to go big with this product line they will crush the "Mom and Pop" cocaine dealers.

Wait, that's actually kind of funny. And not in a "I'm so depressed at the state of humanity I wish a totally hilarious plague would wipe all of us out" kind of way. Thank you, Tim.

Melvin:
I really love wal*mart but will not have my oil change
there anymore. For some reason they have a hard time with the chassis lubrication components. I have three cars and
when i tell them, it's makes them mad. I do all my oil changing myself. No grease=worn parts. I haven't been back in a year. But you must get under your car and inspect. The store in in Lewisville, but may be others.
Oh, make sure they put the oil cap back on too.

That oil-change department at the Lewisville Wal-Mart is just chuck full of bad seeds.

amber: hi I just thought you should know that I work at a walmart not this one but a supper center walmart in another state and i work in toys. it gets realy bussy in there Some times you dont get to clean the department. alot of times we are dealing with up to five customers at a time and im the only one in that department freqently and its part my job to clean the department but its hard to do that when you have about 30 people in your department that have all diffrent needs. we go out of our way to help customers from spending two hours just looking for one thing for one person in pallets in the back rooms that just came in on order that are stacked to our sealing. we realy try to watch every customer but we cant always do that when I wish we had six of me this time of the year but we dont have enoufe money to hire more people. But we do have cammeras so that person will be cought we never ever let a situtation like this go they will pay the price. and hoildays are hard shoping days for customers please understand we try realy hard to prevet this and happy hoidays. Thanks Angel for finding the drug that could of made a childs familys christmas sad!

Patsy Miller: SOUNDS LIKE HE MIGHT HAVE PUT IT THERE. HE IS TRYING FOR A MOVIE DEAL HA, HOLLYWOOD WOULD BE CRAZY.WAL- MART TRYS VERY HARD TO MAKE THINGS SAFE FOR THEIR COUSTOMERS. I HAPPEN TO WORK FOR WALMART AND WE DO EVERY THING TO KEEP OUR CUSTOMERS SAFE. THIS MAN SHOULD BE TICKED FOR PUTTING HIS CHILD IN HARMS WAY TO TAKE A PIC.TO YOU SIR HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Sandy: I'm sorry that most of you all feel that way about a company that provides jobs for alot of decent people. I for one,need my JOB and I do get bennifts and my pay is real good,I am not aloud to work off the clockeverything we do we have to be on the clock,so I don't understand how people come up with this bull.I have been with the company 23 years and never been miss treated or anything.And as for the joker that thinks that only WHITE TRASH shops there will you must that yourself or how would you know if you have never shopped there!I was rasied in good familey with good vaules.Anyone could have but that mess there even the person that found it just to get notice so to try to sue WAL_MART I hope you can live with yourself and hope you can tell your child when she gets older that you were a jerk for sitting her down in parkinglot just so you could have T. V. TIME and NEWS PAPER SPACE thanks for letting me tell the WAL MART the way it really is.

Holy shit, do Wal-Mart associates just have to sign their job applications with an X, or what?

Walmart Lover: Especially with the comments about the picture of the little girl. She is adorable and if anyone is a parent they know that pictures of a temper tantrum are the BEST. And who knows what was going on behind the camera. Who is to say that the child's parents or grandparents are not right there blocking any form of traffic that may harm the girl. PEOPLE OF THE WORLD get a grip and stop jumping to conclusions and feeling that you are the best person to give advice. JD, I love your writing style and please comtinue posting pics of your adorable little girl....Next please feature the one where she is playing on the train tracks and the train is coming...you know that one right?

Wait, do you mean this one? Because that's one of my favorites.

Ja-Neen Elkins: In January 2006 I was injured when I fell at Wal-Mart in Indiana. They Said it is not their fault. I can't get an Attorney to take My Case. They should be responsible, I have been in Pain , have Permanent injuries, The Attorney's I have talked to Says Wal-Mart always wins. This is not right, That I have to go thru all I have gone thru. People don't realize when they go into Wal-Mart, they are on their own. Not even an Appoligy to say they are sorry. All they say it is not their fault and Attorney's so far will not take case, as they Say Wal-Mart always wins. Something needs to be done about this. Just in July 2006, a little boy lost his life in their store because they were Negligent, I hope that Attorney will win the case, and wake up the World, at how we the Public are being treated.

Ja-Neen, I think I might know just the attorney for you. He's really lazy and has the shittiest beard you've ever seen and he really needs a haircut, but he also really hates Wal-Mart, and he'll take any client that can spell the word 'negligent.' E-mail him: sweetjuniper @ gmail.com.

A: it is not walmart fault,,
a person did that and blame to walmart,,
walmart is innocent store,,
don' t blame walmart,,

Is this some kind of weird Japanese poetry style I've never heard of?

Barbara Loden: why would you put a picture of your daughter on the post? Why would you want her picture on the web? That certainly is not good parenting.

Barb, I think you're on to something.

All week my mind was on unmarked hills of sweet cicely and twinberry bushes bunkered down for the winter, all shaded by Pacific silver furs where everything was wet and cold from dripping springs down canyon walls. I could not get my mind to stray from the man I knew was out there following water, knowing, perhaps, that it takes the quickest path out of the mountains, down to where people have carved their existence into the wilderness with concrete and poles strung with wire, a place where he could send someone to his girls.

On learning that the woman and the two little girls were alive after a week of burning tires and breastfeeding, I wondered how those days were spent before he left, all speculation, and worry, and waiting. This is America. How much longer before some unsuspecting farmer cuts across this godforsaken road in his beat-up truck? When will they start looking for us? How frustration must build out there in the silence, without enough juice in the car battery to capture a radio signal that would say, hang in there; we're looking for you. All of America wants you home. How long can a man wait before he takes matters into his own hands?

I only met you once, James Kim, we stood awkwardly in your store not long after it opened, with my infant in my arms and your 2-year-old Penelope running around behind you. The old Shins album was playing, back when it was new. You were sweet while we discussed how we came up with the names for our girls. We returned there many times; we appreciated your good taste. One of the last things I bought in San Francisco was a glass vase from your store to hang on our wall in Detroit. I still haven't hung it, but when I do I doubt I will ever be able to look at it without thinking about you. You were young. You were just like us. And bad things don't happen to people just like us. At least we thought they didn't.

We sat in warmth, refreshing our browsers over and over to see if anything was new while you struggled through the cold. The reporters made a game of hope, suggesting you were leaving clues, teasing us with scraps of clothes and bits of map, like we would find you at the end, cold and hungry and crying at the news of the daring helicopter rescue of your family. Your father paid men to drop sacks from helicopters throughout the forest. Each sack contained more hope: warm clothes, and food, and a letter to tell you that your girls were safe and well-fed, that you just had to stop searching to be found. Each sack of hope thudded against the ground where it was dropped, onto the silent floor of forest. It was all too late. Your death, at least, was cinematic: the back of your head against the creek bed, the shaggy arms of fur trees hugging the vista of sky, the sweet gurgling of the stream against your ears.

Perhaps, also, the sound of so many helicopters in the air, sending you the peace we all wanted you to have: they found your sweet girls.

It breaks my heart to think of that moment, 7:45 a.m. last Saturday, when you parted from your family. I am reminded of Hector, standing with Andromache at Priam's gate, his infant son there fearful of his horsehair plume, knowing his duty as a man, but also knowing he might never see them again. He spoke these words to ease her sorrow:

Fix'd is the term to all the race of earth;
And such the hard condition of our birth:
No force can then resist, no flight can save,
All sink alike, the fearful and the brave. [transl. Pope]

Your ultimate failing, James Kim, is that you were too brave of a man. More time, in this case, would have rewarded cowardice, but time was one of many resources of which you didn't have enough. Your perseverance led to your doom, that and your frailty as a creature of temperature. I will not, as others have, call you a hero. You were above all else a good father. You did what any parent would like to think he'd do for his own, what we often say we'd do but never have the chance to prove. You died so that they might live.

Part of your legacy, beyond two daughters who will grow up forever touched by the unending love you had for them, will be that for a few days in December, you brought millions of us closer. Millions of husbands were hugged by tearful wives, millions of children were adored a little more for what miracles they were. And you reminded us all of how much we have in common.

Because I haven't had to deal with a real winter in years, I never put up any street urchins in winter photos. And I have so many great winter street urchin photos to use.

Oh, and goddamn it's cold here.

[The following is the second fragment of the script for "The Little Lebowski," a sequel to the Big Lebowski that thankfully was never made; parts of the proposed script were recovered by an associate at the Sepulveda Boulevard Kinkos in Van Nuys, CA, after a frazzled Ethan Coen rushed in to copy a small stack of typewritten pages, accidentally leaving several in the recycling bin. The first fragment is here. Note: if you have not seen the movie, this will not make any sense]

BOWLING PINS
There is the sound of pins scattering in the background noise of the bowling alley. The Dude is leaning his head against a pay phone set between the lockers and the men's room. Walter stands near him, staring down the barrel of a plastic Uzi submachine gun pointed at the screen of a shoot-em-up-style arcade game called 'Operation Wolf.' The Dude keeps entering numbers into the telephone.

DUDE
What the fuck is wrong with me, I can never remember the code for my goddamn machine!

WALTER
Um, might that not have something to do with all of that marijuana you've been smoking there, Dude? I'll tell you what, once my band of brothers in 'Nam started smoking that stuff, their short-term memories as well as their hand-to-hand-combat skills deteriorated. You think the fucking gooks were smoking dope down the tunnels with their rat balls and rice meat?

DUDE
It's not the pot, Walter. I'm pretty sure pot got all the brain cells it was ever going to take from me twenty years ago. I think I'm just getting old, man.

WALTER
[screaming at video game] Goddamn it I shot that last goddamn canister of life potion! [turns to the dude] Well, it's about time you got a cell phone anyways.

DUDE
We've had this conversation, Walter. The Dude does not do cell phones.

WALTER
All I'm saying is that you don't have to know a fucking code to check your voicemail when you've got a fucking cell phone.

DUDE
First of all, Walter, this is my answering machine, not voicemail. Second of all. . .well fuck it I can't remember what's second of all. See what I'm talking about?

WALTER
Well, I still don't understand why a call from that fucking strumpet should take precedence over practice for the league quarterfinals.

DUDE
Watch it, man, that's the mother of my son you're talking about.

WALTER
Sorry, Dude.

DUDE
Walter, I'm just not in any position to turn down, you know, any vagina that comes my way. Until last month I hadn't been with a real woman for over two years. Not since that checker girl from Ralph's I met at Smokey's barbecue.

WALTER
That's nothing. Unless you count Suki down at the Tokyo Spa down on Lincoln Boulevard, I haven't been with a woman since 1987.

DUDE
Christ, Walter. Well, anyway, the two last times I brought the kid back after my Saturday with him, well, you know, Maude and I, we've ended up sharing, you know, the physical act of love.

WALTER
You mean coitus?

DUDE
That's exactly what I mean, Walter.

WALTER
Way to go, Dude! If you will it, it is no dream.

DUDE
Yeah, well, I don't think this has just been fun and games. I saw her doing that leg thing.

WALTER
Oh. I see. When we were married, Cynthia always wanted more than one kid.

DUDE
Don't she and Marty Ackerman have two kids now?

WALTER
Shira and Ben, yeah, they're sweet kids.

DUDE
She named her daughter She-ra? Like the Princess of Power?

WALTER
Dude, you're such a shlemiel. Shira is the Hebrew word for 'song.'

DUDE
Oh. [dials again] I think I got it!

MAUDE'S VOICE
[on the machine] Jeffrey this is Maude. I need for you to come up here this evening. I'm sending the driver. If he doesn't find you at home, I've instructed him to look for you at that odious bowling parlor you frequent. This is important Jeffrey. It is in regard to your son.

END SCENE

MAUDE'S LOFT

[Dude walks in humming Suzie Q., turns on a light, clearly now at ease in the unusual space. He walks over to the bar and fixes himself a White Russian after sniffing the carton of half-n-half.]

DUDE
Maude? You here?

MAUDE [voice coming from the darkness of the cavernous space]
I'm just finishing putting Egon to bed, Jeffrey, I'll be out in a minute. Make yourself a drink.

DUDE
Yeah, uh, Maude, you know, I've been thinking about what's happened, um, the last couple of times I've come here. And I'm not really sure it's such a good idea.

[Maude steps out from a private room in one corner of the loft; she is wearing a bathrobe with cleavage indicating that it's all she's wearing]

MAUDE
Why, whatever do you mean, Jeffrey?

DUDE
I mean, the sex.

MAUDE
You're not interested in sex?

DUDE
It's just. Well, Maude, it's just I'm not sure I'm ready to have another kid, man.

MAUDE
Whoever said anything about having another child, Jeffrey?

DUDE
I saw you doing, you know, that leg thing the last time, you know, while I was walking off to take a piss.

MAUDE
[pauses] Right. It's true, Jeffrey. I do want another child. I would like to give little Egon a sister. He is nearly three-years old now and all of the texts I have been reading suggest that this the perfect age for him to have a sibling. Besides, having Egon hasn't turned out nearly as bad as you thought, has it?

DUDE
No. I do actually kind of like the little guy. We do have some fun times. But something tells me that having two is just going to be a lot more work, man. A lot more of a strain on the Dude's lifestyle, you know what I'm trying to say.

MAUDE
If you won't help me, Jeffrey, I may be forced to find another source of semen. Or I might even pick out one of those baby girls next time I'm in Beijing. But I would prefer my children to fully share their genetic makeup. Dr. R. Trivers has suggested that the normal antipathies of sibling rivalry are tempered when the siblings share genes, providing an evolutionary motivation for love between them. I have been doing a great deal of reading about sibling relationships. All of my understanding is theoretical, of course, as I am an only child and want nothing more than to provide Egon with a sibling, thus sparing him the loneliness I knew as a child. Do you have any siblings, Jeffrey?

DUDE
I have a sister. She's a lawyer in Atlanta.

MAUDE
Is she older or younger?

DUDE
Older.

MAUDE
Very good. You understand, don't you Jeffrey? I need you.

DUDE
Well, I suppose it would require us to adhere to a pretty strict, uh, sex regimen, you know, to keep my testicles limber?

MAUDE
Au Contraire, Jeffrey, I would ask that you abstain from any onanistic behaviors over the next several months. You must refrain from any 'servicing of yourself,' or 'jerking off' to use the parlance of our times. I need you to avoid 'any hand-to-gland combat,' and ask you to stop 'tickling your trout,' as it were.

DUDE
Um, Maude, you know, that's a lot to ask of the Dude.

MAUDE
Actually, I don't care what you do with your rod or your johnson so long as you do not waste your ejaculate. So you can 'pound your pud' as much as you'd like, but please refrain from 'busting a nut' or 'tossing off' what I need you to have in full supply.

DUDE
Oh come on, Maude, that's like asking me to drink non-alcoholic beer. Or smoke industrial-grade hemp.

MAUDE
Regardless, Jeffrey, I expect the only place for you to shoot any of that sperm of yours these next few months is into my vaginal canal. And only when my OBGYN tells me that I might be ovulating.

DUDE
Mmmm. Sounds like fun.

MAUDE
Yes, well, also if you don't already I would ask you to start wearing boxer shorts.

DUDE
Clearly you do not know the Dude. The Dude does not do briefs.

MAUDE
And now is not the time for him to start. And Jeffrey, how much actual marijuana do you smoke every day?

DUDE
OK, let's not even go there. That is a battle I do not think you can win. Besides, man, I'm not even sure I want another kid. I've just got my new rug, you know, and. . .and my place is looking all together and I'm pretty comfortable with the arrangement we have now, man. The first kid really, you know, shook things up in old Duder's life as it is, you know, and I'm just afraid another one would. . .

MAUDE
Let me ease your fears, Jeffrey. I certainly wouldn't expect any more of your time with a second child than what you already give to the first, which is more than adequate. Those six hours each month are more than I expected, to be sure. And if I am lucky enough to give birth to a girl, Jeffrey, I would not mind it at if I could rear her alone. I would like to shield her from all patriarchal and paternal influence.

DUDE
Huh. Why do you even want another kid? What about, uh, all those Achievers?

MAUDE
Yes, well, I want another of my own. [Maude rolls her eyes] Recently I was speaking with my father, and he told me that Brandt and his lover had adopted a baby girl, and he wanted me to bring Egon over there so we could all take a look at the poor thing. When we arrived and I held her in my arms for the first time I said to myself, "I have got to get another one of these." I have since been channeling all these maternal emotions into a new set of paintings using my bungee ceiling harness and menstrual fluid. You know, Jeffrey, I've made so many of these paintings I've had to farm out more menses blood from some women down in Tijuana. You are welcome to take a look at my paintings if you'd like.

DUDE
No. Thank you.

MAUDE
Very well. Another reason that I want to have another child now rather than later is that I look forward to ridding my home of all of these miserable plastic toys and furniture as soon as possible. I do wonder if I could get Assa Ashuach to design me some nursery furniture. I'm afraid he'd find me a bit tedious now that I've bred.

DUDE
Uh-huh.

MAUDE
Jeffrey, we certainly don't need to have sex tonight if you don't desire it. Relax, 'do a jay,' as you like to say. Finish your drink, I'll make you another. We could just talk.

[The Dude dutifully pulls a small joint out of his front-shirt pocket and Maude holds out an old-fashioned cigarette lighter. Maude then reaches for a drink next to the Dude, and her nipple slips out of her bathrobe. She doesn't notice it for a second, but when she does she coyly looks at him and covers it up. The Dude chokes on smoke a little]

DUDE
So what do you want to talk about?

MAUDE
Jeffrey, have I ever showed you up close how the carpets match the drapes?

DUDE
What are you talking about, man, the floor in here is all concrete. Oh. Right.

[End scene]

Wood chose this one. I think she felt some kinship with the freckled fella up front.

From the great Helen Levitt.

You wouldn't know it from the hundreds of stories on parenting issues he writes for Blogging Baby or from the sorts of things he writes around here, but there was a time when Dutch was scared shitless of becoming a parent. We were living in San Francisco, and every month when he heard me pull the tampon box out from under the sink it was as if the collective weight of a thousand dirty diapers had been lifted off our apartment. Each time I dragged him into our neighborhood baby gear store looking for a gift for one of the growing number of children being born to my friends, he would break out into hives while looking at books with titles like Finding a Preschool for Your Child in San Francisco and Finding a Nanny for Your Child in the San Francisco Bay Area, and inevitably he would storm out of the store to hyperventilate on the sidewalk outside. "We're not going to have a kid in this city," he'd say. "There's no way I'm going to deal with all that crap here."

It came as quite a shock to me, then, when one day in 2003, well over a year before I got pregnant, he came home with the newly-reissued Miroslav Sasek book, This is San Francisco, which at first he claimed to have purchased for the classic mid-century illustrations, but which he later admitted to buying so that one day our kids could read it and learn all about the city where their parents lived when they were young.

Today Juniper is sick. Her symptoms include a runny nose, general crabbiness, whining, all sorts of carrying on, crappy sleeping, and lots of complaining. The only weapon we seem to have against it all is reading books. It's the only thing that makes her forget how miserable she is, and so we spend hours reading the same ones, repeatedly caving to the dreaded, "Again? Again, please?" and starting from the beginning, over and over and over.

Last night Juniper finally got tired of her own favorites and toddled over to her bookshelves in search of something new. She eventually settled on This is San Francisco. It's a big book, and after she lugged it across the room over to my lap last night, I read it to her for the first time in many months, the first time when we weren't sitting in the middle of the city portrayed in the book. She was quiet and didn't protest at the lack of dogs or monkeys or babies, the way she had the last time I'd tried to read it to her. I assumed she was just tolerating it because the snot filling up every spare hole in her head made it hard for her to hear, but on the 5th page she interrupted me, pointing to a drawing of typical San Francisco houses lining a hilly, typical San Francisco street, and said: "Home?" On the next page, she pointed to another house and asked, "Mama dada, live?"

For the first time since we've moved here, it felt like someone had stolen my heartbeat, and I was overwhelmed with longing for San Francisco. The page featuring a drawing of Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park, where I reminded Juniper about how we used to feed the ducks after picking up coffee and bagels, reduced me to tears. In that moment I felt foolish for ever denying that I miss our old home. Co-workers and new friends have asked me so many times some permutation of the question of how could we ever leave San Francisco, don't we miss it, and wasn't it so much better than Detroit. I've shrugged those questions off every time, expressing mild irritation as I tried to explain my new love for this new city. Moving here was risky in so many ways, that I think I was afraid that even the smallest acknowledgment that San Francisco was a city well worth missing would be an acknowledgment of our worst fears: that moving here could be a mistake.

Now that we've been here for two months, I'm confident enough in our decision to move to Detroit that I can allow myself some space to miss San Francisco. Our well-worn apartment on 2nd Avenue was the place where my boyfriend turned into my husband, and after that, where we grew together from people terrified of accidentally becoming pregnant to the parents that we were both born to be.

No one commented last week on how pathetic we are for falling asleep every night on the couch at 11:00 p.m. Did I fail to mention that we usually fall asleep watching "Yo Momma," the Wilmer Valderrama vehicle on MTV where his decidedly un-gay, non foreign-exchange-student actual meathead self parades around the five boroughs looking for guys to make fun of each others' mommas. He'll end up with two guys from two different neighborhoods standing around in a MTVified version of the traditional dozens. The jokes are inevitably either so tired or rendered so nonsensical by the censors that I spend most of the time watching the show astonished that this Wilmer chump is the guy to whom Lindsay Lohan gave the delicate, fiery flower of her virginity. No matter what, the program is a great elixir for sleeplessness.

But last night I was awake on the couch while on the screen Wilmer held his palm to his mouth with his eyes saying, "Oh, I know he didn't just say that horrible thing about that other guy's mother," and there was the other guy's mother standing over there next to him, a plump target in hair curlers. Could she not take her hair curlers out before she went on MTV? I got to wondering, where was her outrage? Now that I'm a fucking mother, I take great offense to all that trash talking. I'm not "so stank" that "my shit is glad to escape out my ass." My shit is happy right where it is, thank you. Why haven't any mommybloggers taken Wilmer to task for perpetuating this heinous species of "humor"? Well, snap, if no one else is going to do it, I'm just going take on the fight myself. And in my corner in this very serious fight, I have the help of one man who don't take no jibba-jabba from none of those fools he pities. Please, for the love of mommas everywhere, watch Mr. T bring it:



In case those snazzily-dressed backup singers distracted you, these are the lyrics he's "rapping":

M is for the moan, and the miserable groan from the pain that she felt when I was born
O is for the oven with it's burnin' heat where she stood makin' sure I had something to eat
T is for the time that she stayed up at night and took my temperature when I wasn't feelin' right
H is for the hard earned money she spent to keep clothes on my back and try to pay da' rent
E is every wrinkle I put on her face and every worry that I caused when I stayed out late
The last letter R is that she taught me Respect and for the room up in Heaven that I know she'll get.

Well, doesn't that just say it all? Hooray for mothers everywhere. There's even a remix. Remember kids, as Mr. T says, "When you put down one mother, you put down mothers all over the world."

I have a confession. Although I have complained about kids' music time and time again, even comparing most of it to, "a secret U.S. Army acoustic weapons system designed to paralyze and induce vomiting by all exposed to it," I do have this cassette tape that Juniper's old day care gave us to listen to at home so she would be familiar with the music at the weekly singalong. And I have been playing it in the car lately. A lot. At first I treated it like one of those little hammers in the "break only in case of emergency" boxes. But only an emergency turned into "only when she's screaming" which then turned into "only when she asks for that goddamn Dancing with Teddy song" which then turned into the tape being the default audio experience in our 4-door sedan. Wood and I went out for dinner without Juniper on Saturday night and we drove two miles before we realized we were still listening to that fucking tape. And we were fucking humming along with it.

But that's not the worst of it. Yesterday was an unusually warm and pleasant November day, and Juniper and I were driving with the windows halfway down on Detroit's east side. At a stoplight two young black dudes rolled to a slow stop next to me, their chrome-plated rims shaped to look like the barrel of a revolver were spinning long after their car had ceased forward motion, and from the trunk of their car two enormous speakers were blasting a bass-heavy rap song, the only lyrics of which seemed to be, "Scared motherfucker? Then call the police. . .Scared motherfucker? Then call the police." This, by itself, did not bother me. In high school I had driven a friend to "a fat girl's house" so he could "get some pussy" in my 1990 Pontiac Grand Prix with the one gray fender and he put an MC Breed cassette in my Kenwood deck, but the only lyric on the whole album seemed to be, "it's just another nigga to my AK. . .it's just another nigga to my AK." That made me uncomfortable. These guys turned to look at me through their backseat passenger window and I nodded, feeling pretty out-macho'd just by virtue of their ride. Then the driver of the car leaned forward and turned his stereo' volume down, and all you could hear was the music coming from my car stereo at an unexpectedly high volume:

Everyone jump-n-jump-n-Josie,
Everyone jump-n-jump-n-Josie,
Everyone jump-n-jump-n-Josie
Jumpin' all day long!

I would have reached for the volume knob myself, but that would have sent Juniper into a whiny chorus of "more Jumpin-n-Josie? more Jumpin-n-Josie?" So I just shrugged my shoulders, and before I could offer them some of our pruno, their stereo was blasting even louder than before and the light had turned green, and they were squealing their tires to get away from us. Now who's scared, motherfuckers?

The urchin costume was still in the closet, and it still fit her. Could I really resist?

Well over a year ago I articulated my totally annoying elitist-asshole position on Juniper and television here. I asked, with a certain very-punchable naivete, whether Juniper would ever love watching Charlie Chaplin movies with me. Well, for the first and probably the last time in our lives, Juniper and I have the same favorite movie: Charlie Chaplin's The Kid. She asks for it every morning. Some days we watch the entire thing together. When I pick her up and swing her around the room she screams, "fly like Chachi!" referring, I think, to the "dreamland" sequence at the end of the film when the Tramp wakes to find himself in heaven, and "flies" about the tenement courtyard with the kid on wires while wearing angel wings and white robes. Her idol is the kid, played by Jackie Coogan, who starred in dozens of movies typecast as a street urchin. When he was middle-aged he played Uncle Fester on the Addams Family series.

So when I found a pair of fairy wings at the dollar store next to the wig store down the street, I knew I could put together a costume that she and I both would love:

She just kept shouting "kid, wings!" and made me fly her up and down the alleys where we were walking down by the Detroit River during the day on Halloween. The only moments she grew pensive were when I put her down to take a picture. I took a lot of them.

When we got home from trick-or-treating in the Summers' dream neighborhood last evening, and after we'd tackled all the houses in our Detroit neighborhood that were giving out candy, we brought Juniper into our house, her makeup smudged and mostly gone, and we stood her on the bathroom counter facing the mirror. "Who's that?" we asked.

"Juney Panda!" she shouted, and did a little dance and cackle. This was the inspiration for the costume her mother made for her, and she clutched it in her hand all day in anticipation of being a panda.

Earlier in the day I'd set her in front of the mirror with another costume (I'll write about that one later this week) and she stood there and laughed with such joy when she realized who she was dressed to be. For Wood and I, this Halloween dredged up all kinds of memories after that long interlude of slutty and ironic Halloweens. The holiday is such a wonderful chance for kids to use their imagination. There was such joy emanating from all the kids. I was a little worried about Max, though. I was concerned that all that joy was going to start shooting through his skin and do to the other children what the Ark of the Covenant did to that creepy Nazi at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

There was just something about being out with Juniper after dark in dancing flashlights, holding her little paw up the walkways onto the porches and into the province of strangers, teaching her there is one day where it is perfectly acceptable to accept candy from strangers and stare into their foyers and living rooms, inspect the art on their walls and imagine, for a second, what their lives are like and how different things would be if that was your house, hearing her say "trick or treat" and then, "tank you," while watching candy drop into her pumpkin. It was what it should be, after all.

I've known what I wanted Juniper to be this Halloween since last September, when we first knew that we would be moving to Detroit and I learned about the Nain Rouge from a friend well-versed in cryptozoological urban legends.

The Nain Rouge is a goblin that haunts downtown Detroit. Witnesses have described him as a small, child-sized creature with red hair, "blazing red eyes and rotten teeth." According to legend, the Nain Rouge is a harbinger of doom for the city; every one of the tragic moments faced by this beautiful city has been preceded by a sighting of the creature.

The evil imp's origins are said to precede the arrival of white folks to the Detroit area; before Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac and his lusty French fur-trapping camerados showed up to give him his snooty-sounding moniker, he was known as the "Demon of the Strait" to the Ottawa people. Legend has it that in 1710, Cadillac himself encountered and attacked the Nain Rouge, and within days he lost both his fame and fortune and took off for Montreal a broken man. Nearly sixty years later, during the French and Indian War, on the day before the battle of Bloody Run, the Nain Rouge was observed following a British captain on the banks of the Detroit River. The following day, that captain and 58 of his soldiers were ambushed by Chief Pontiac on the banks of a small tributary of the Detroit River that ran "rouge" with their blood for days.

The Nain Rouge was seen by several witnesses in the days before the massive fire of 1805 which destroyed the majority of Detroit. The American general William Hull claimed he saw the gremlin in the fog just just before his surrender of Detroit to the British during the War of 1812. The creature was seen before calamities throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and most recently was spotted before the 1967 riot that forever changed the city and the day before one of the worst ice storms in the city's history in 1976, two utility workers reported seeing "a child" climb a utility pole and then jump from the top of the pole and run swiftly away as they investigated. A few drunks have seen him here and there since.

The moment I heard about the Nain Rouge last September I knew what I wanted Juniper to be this Halloween. I have been on the lookout for a toddler-sized red wig for a year.

Detroit is a lovely city, but it is the only place where I have ever seen a real coffin for sale in a thrift store. It was right next to the Halloween costumes in a store located in a neighborhood where someone could foreseeably purchase it for non-decorative use. Hanging on the costume rack was a small Elmo costume Juniper's size. I knew I could easily adapt it to trick her into thinking she was Elmo for Halloween, when really she was the Nain Rouge, harbinger of doom.

But then I got to thinking: the Tigers were still in the World Series. The auto companies are lurching towards unheard-of losses. I just bought real estate here. Did I really want to tempt the fates?

I didn't buy the costume, and my wife ultimately convinced me it was the right decision. "Nobody will get it," she said. "And if you try to explain it, you'll sound like an asshole." The other thing: unlike last year, this year Juniper knows about Halloween. I asked her what she wanted to be, and she didn't say "a cryptozoological goblin that brings misfortune to my newly-adopted home." What she said, Wood made on her sewing machine. She's going to be what she wants to be for Halloween.

But when the Tigers lost the series to St. Louis Saturday night, I couldn't help but feel some regret. What worse calamity could my little Nain Rouge have inspired in this city? But a couple days after the world series loss, a study was released stating the St. Louis was the most dangerous city in America, with Detroit in second place.

Sometimes it's better to be in second place.

I have discovered, now that I have a kid, that it's weird hanging out with my parents. We'll be sitting around, and I'll mention something Juniper has been doing that's a real pain in my ass, and my dad will sit there and nod his head and say, "I sure do remember that." It gives me a new connection to him that is surefooted and real, as if parenthood itself is a fraternity of tolerance. In such moments we might tap beer bottles with another, at the neck, if my dad were the kind of guy to drink beer in front of me rather than squirrel away an always-half-empty pint of Captain Morgan in a box at the top of his closet. As we sit and soberly commiserate about what a pain in the ass kids can be, I have a revelation: Hey, that's not cool, man: that pain in his ass he's talking about is me.

For example, I learned last night that Juniper's recent artistry was not without some genetic precedent. Turns out I painted bedroom walls with my own shit when I was her age. My dad laughed as he told the story, making Wood and my mom laugh, leaving everyone laughing but me. His tale of undirected ire and harried frustration in removing every fecal speck from the stucco was too familiar. And Wood suspected he felt there was some justice in the turnabout.

Some day, many years from now, perhaps Juniper will have a kid and bring memories of her own infancy back to me, and I'll crack a few beers and we can commiserate, but if I'm good I'll be sure to remind her that until she brought them up I'd forgotten every albatross of parenthood, all of them overwhelmed by her being the best thing that ever happened to me.

Even if I haven't forgotten.

When I was a kid, I loved October for the sophisticated reason that my birthday was in the middle of the month, and just when I was coming down from the presents and cake, two weeks later came the sugar-coma-inducing, best-holiday-EVER, Halloween.

Over the years, however, October lost its charm with me. Birthday celebrations in offices were pathetic disappointments compared to elementary school birthday parties, where instead of distributing cupcakes with sprinkles to all of your eager classmates, you get to eat cake at a staff meeting on a random day of the month co-celebrating your birthday with three other schlubby Libras. Halloween stopped being fun, too. Cute childhood costumes were replaced with slutty excuses, and when I got sick of slutty excuses, I was left with no choice but to opt out of Halloween. Living in San Francisco didn't help either; not only is the city completely devoid of seasons, but it is also extra full of sexiness at the end of October. Who has the energy to be that sexy?

But now we're in Michigan again. My birthday was over a week ago. I'm still not quite 30, so that alone is something worth celebrating. Even better, apparently my birthday made quite an impression on Juniper. Two days ago, as we sat eating a family dinner, she started to sing to herself quietly when she was finished eating. After a few seconds, Dutch and I realized that she was singing, "Happy Birthday Dear Mama." She now sings it for me on command, and each time I hear her garbled, nearly tuneless version and the way she squeaks out the "Maaaaama" at the end, my heart slides down the inside of my ribcage and starts leaking into my pancreas and my gall bladder. She has also recently started saying, "I love you" when I leave for work in the morning. These two things totally make up for the fact that on my birthday, she successfully refused to take any nap at all for the first time in her life, which meant that by 5:30 she was a hot mess of tears and exhaustion, forcing us to abandon our plan to go to a restaurant for dinner together.

And to top it all off, Halloween is once again something to forward to. Last year Dutch dressed Juniper up as a street urchin, and even though I was skeptical, it was a great costume. But the whole thing still had an element of farce to it -- Juniper was just a squishy, wobbly 9 month old who never noticed what she was wearing or the newspaper we safety-pinned to her sleeve, making her costume and our subsequent parading around the San Francisco dusk feel silly. This year, though, she gets it. She loves pumpkins and ghosts and witches. Thanks to Dutch's weekly pilgrimages to the zoo, Juniper recognizes a wide range of animals, giving me plenty of furry choices for her costume. She's also particular about what she wears, usually requesting each morning to put on her swim suit and dance around the house. She's a total ham, and I know she's going to love dressing up and walking around the neighborhood. The real challenge for me will be finishing her costume before I chuck the sewing machine out the window in frustration, and then preventing her and her accomplice (otherwise known as her dad) from walking away with all of our neighbors' pumpkins on Halloween night.

October is also great this year for all of the Michigan reasons we've missed: the beautiful leaves, the cool air, cider mills with local apples and homemade donuts, and the Tigers. Even though I get so nervous watching them that I can't look at the screen, and even though I ask Dutch dumb questions like,"why does that guy get to run after the other guy caught the ball in the outfield," I'm excited about professional sports for the first time in my life. Watching sports is what people do here, and rather than fight it, I've simply accepted it as an excellent excuse to drink another beer.

So far, this is the best October I've had in a long time. And we're not even to the best part yet.